


His Hirsute Hanker Sore

by suburbanmotel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Derek Hale Has Chest Hair, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Insecure Stiles Stilinski, Insecurity, Jealous Stiles Stilinski, Jealousy, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pining, past death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 05:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19222795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanmotel/pseuds/suburbanmotel
Summary: Derek has one foot out the door and Stiles is hanging on for dear life, heels dug firmly in the ground, determined to save whatever this thing is they’re doing that has no name.//“You just,” Stiles starts. He tries to calm the thready, unsteady beat of his heart. “You make me so mad sometimes.”Derek laughs. “Well yeah. I knowthat.”Stiles smiles a little. “I make you mad, too.”Derek laughs again. “Yeah. You sure do.”Stiles looks at him. “But not for the same reasons.”//





	His Hirsute Hanker Sore

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even sure where this came from. Fast and furious and hairy and sleep-deprived.

Look: I am building absence  
out of this room’s air, I’m reading suppositions into  
summer’s script snarled on a varnished floor.  
It looks like a man. That knot’s his hand  
waving good-bye, that stippled stripe of grain’s  
the stacked-up vertebrae of his turned back.  
Small birds (sparrows or finches, or perhaps)  
are cluttering the trees with blackened ornaments (burning  
in the remnant light of August eight o’clock), and noises  
I can't hear. Chirring there, chittering. The window’s closed.

_~Drawing From Life, Reginald Shepherd_

//

Hanker Sore  
_adj._ finding a person so attractive it actually kinda pisses you off.

//

 

“Hirsute.”

“Gesundheit.”

The room is dim and hot and smells like sweat and saliva and semen. Stiles’ ribs ache, muscles pulled taut and tight between bones, and there’s a dull throbbing behind his left eye. His eye _lid_ is twitching intermittently. His limbs feel like jelly. He’s still trying to catch his breath and he’s lying in a big wet spot, green cotton sheet stuck to his lower back.

It’s _perfect_.

He twists his neck so he can look up at Derek. Derek’s face is calm, his expression relaxed. Probably because he just had the best orgasm of his entire goddamn life, for which Stiles takes full credit thank you very much. But communication in any kind of relationship is key and Stiles is going to communicate goddammit, even if his own brain feels like oatmeal.

“You. You’re _hirsute_ ,” Stiles says. He pats Derek’s damp chest for emphasis. His damp, _very hairy_ chest. Derek sighs a bit, air in and out through his nose, and closes his eyes. “Hirsute,” Stiles repeats, pleased with himself. He waits for Derek to say something. Derek just breathes, shallow and tight. “Hirsute means—”

“I know what it means,” Derek says. His fingers are on the top of Stiles’ head, blunt nails scritch-scratching over damp scalp. “So you can stop saying it now.” He pauses. “And I agree.”

“Yeah you do,” Stiles says. “Because it’s true.” Stiles twists under Derek’s hands, elbowing him in the side just below the ribs where it’s soft and Derek grunts.

“Be still,” Derek says, but Stiles ignores him, keeps twisting until he can lever himself up enough to rest his cheek on top of all the hair. He nuzzles it with his chin and his ear and then his nose. It tickles his skin and he almost sneezes. He inhales deep then blows out hard and long, making Derek squirm.

“Stiles.” It’s a warning, but a lukewarm one. The only heat left now is cooling steadily between their sticky skin. Stiles should have opened the window before they began because the air in the room is still and thick and heavy now, filled with ghosts of broken gasps and pleas and hoarse cries.

“It just interesting, is what it is,” Stiles says, running his fingers through the coarse dark hair. He’s making a pattern, swirls and crosses, lines and dots. So much _hair_.

“What is.” Derek sounds like he’s falling asleep. He’s on the edge, pinwheeling between here and there, so Stiles needs to move fast, if he wants to be heard. He could talk for hours, given the chance, but sex generally knocks Derek right out. At least Stiles assumes it does because they haven’t done it all that often, not enough to be _scientific_ about it or anything. This, this thing, whatever it is, whatever they’re calling it, has so far remained nameless. Stiles likes names. He likes labels and words because it helps him sort out his world. He keeps petting and patting, thoughts rattling around in his brain and tongue rattling around in his mouth.

“The hair. All this glorious hair. Where does it go when you, you know, wolf out? Because it’s gone, poof, right?” He looks up at Derek’s face, assuming he’s already dead to the world, but no, he’s still awake, eyes half open, and he’s watching Stiles steadily with that look he gets sometimes, snagged between fond and furious. Amused and aggravated. Lust and—

“I have no idea where it goes. It just does.” Derek shifts a bit, hands falling heavy, one on Stiles’ head and one on his back, in the little hollow between his shoulder blades. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah.” Stiles shrugs. “No. Well, yeah. _Yeah_. It does. It’s weird, right? There’s a lot of fucking hair here.” He nuzzles it again for emphasis. This time Derek remains still, chest rising and falling under Stiles’ cheek.

“If it _bothers you_ so much—”

“Oh no, no. It doesn’t _bother_ me in the least. I’m just a curious kind of person. That’s all.”

“Good, because I’m kind of stuck with it.” Derek’s voice is fading. “At least in this form.”

“You could shave it I guess.” Stiles pets it. “As an experiment, you know? Just for, like, scientific purposes.”

“Uh huh.” Derek laughs, soft. “I hate shaving, Stiles. Hate it. I’m not doing it.”

“Well I don’t _want_ you to,” Stiles says, quick. “Unless _you_ want to. Which, clearly you don’t.” He closes his eyes and imagines sliding against Derek’s slick, bare chest, that long expanse of smooth, hairless skin. He thinks about that and presses his nose into the hair, moving his face back and forth, lips brushing up against a nipple, making Derek jump and huff out a sound. “Sorry, sorry.” He curls his fingers around Derek’s ribs and lets his head rise and fall with Derek’s breaths. Jesus it’s hot in here. He really should get up and open the window. But he really doesn’t want to move. But it’s so _hot_ and fresh air is good for sleeping and—

“Stiles,” Derek says, so very quiet in his I’m-almost-asleep-and-you-should-be-too-because-you’re-driving-me crazy voice.

“Yeah.”

“Stop.”

“I’m not doing any—”

“Stop _thinking_.”

Stiles smiles. He stops. Mostly. He sleeps.

 

//

 

Stiles works part-time at the library for the summer. The Beacon Hills Branch is small but well-stocked, quiet and well-lit, its patrons ranging from exhausted moms with babies and toddlers to summer school college students to slow-moving seniors, and they’re mostly lovely and always appreciative and that’s great and all, but more important than any of that is the fact that the building is highly air-conditioned.

In the blessed cool and quiet, Stiles re-shelves books, helps patrons locate magazines and large-print romance novels, suggests the newest releases of movies and DVDs and points in the direction of the bathrooms at least three times a day. His work is calm and slow and methodical, completely contradicting his natural state of being, and he loves every minute of it.

Derek visits him almost every shift, slipping quietly in the heavy front door, scanning the room until he spies Stiles who is usually pushing his metal cart with the wonky front wheel, and if Stiles is lucky enough to spot him in time, he gets to see Derek smile. An actual genuine smile that does something very strange to Stiles’ heartbeat and body temperature.

Library patrons also get to see Derek smile, if they’re paying attention — and they definitely do pay attention — and they get to see Derek in general, and they generally like what they see. Stiles has mentally tallied how many locals have straight up hit on him in the six weeks or so they’ve been doing whatever it is they’re doing and Derek has been coming to visit and so far that tally sits at 27, 13 women and 14 men. When he tells Derek this number, Derek rolls his eyes and makes a scoffing noise but his ears go pink and the tops of his cheeks, too. Stiles can’t tell if he’s pleased or embarrassed or mad or what but he’s decided he pretty much doesn’t want to know.

Usually the come-ons are vague and innocuous, innocent enough that the general bystander would hardly notice, but Stiles is no general bystander. There are casual touches, lingering glances, extra loud laughs and a lot of intense eye contact. Derek is always polite, if quiet and brief, and if Stiles shoves a book into its shelf space a little harder or slams his wobbly cart into its designated spot a little rougher, well no one’s the wiser.

Today Derek is hardly in the door when he’s accosted head-on by Karly Livingstone, one of the college students taking extra credits for her Economics degree. She’s clutching a textbook to her chest and has her feet firmly planted hip-width apart, daring Derek to step around her. She’s engaged him in some discourse that Stiles can’t hear from his vantage point and Derek looks, as always, mildly interested and unfailingly polite, as he stands and listens and replies occasionally. Then Karly reaches out and puts her hand on Derek’s bare arm and _leaves it there_ as she talks and talks. Derek doesn’t bat an eye. Stiles pauses in his wobbly journey across the foyer and takes in the scene from the corner of his eye. Karly’s mouth is moving a lot and Derek is watching her and Stiles is watching him. He’s still watching as Karly removes her hand after about a thousand years and fishes her phone out of her back pocket. She starts tapping on it, one-handed, like she’s sending Derek a message. Like she’s sending him her _phone number_ or something, because what else could she be doing? What else could she be tippity-tapping on her phone about as Derek politely stands and waits and—

Stiles hits the corner of the desk and stumbles and a particularly heavy art history book falls directly on his foot and he _shrieks_. By the time Derek gets to him, Stiles is performing an undignified hopping flailing hobble that has the attention of every single person in the room. Derek kneels on the ground and places a large hand over Stiles’ sneaker and holds it there until the pain is mostly gone and Stiles can put weight on it again and then glare at Karly until she raises her eyebrows and sniffs and walks away.

That’s right. Keep walking.

“You okay?” Derek asks in his Library Voice, which is quiet and hushed and dignified in the wake of Stiles’ recent squawking.

“Yeah. Yeah, thanks.” Stiles flexes his toes inside his shoe and catches his boss’s eye at the same time.

“Why don’t you take your break now, Stiles?” Mr. Kruger says and it’s not a suggestion.

They sit side by side in Derek’s car in the early summer sunshine, windows down, Stiles sipping on the bottle of ice tea Derek brought for him. He’s glaring out the window at nothing in particular as Derek fiddles with the radio. Bad song bad song stupid song static static country _ick._

“Pick something!” Stiles finally snaps and Derek sighs.

“What’s wrong?” He knows. He always knows.

Stiles puts the bottle down. “You are unfairly attractive.”

“Ok.” Derek waits. “And you’re mad about that?”

“People hit on you. Constantly.”

“Ok,” Derek says again.

“That’s it?” Stiles looks at him. “That’s all you have to say? That girl. Karly. She was going to give you her number, right?”

Derek shrugs. “I guess. I wasn’t really paying attention. There was a lot of screaming and flopping going on in the background.”

“Har har. She was going to give you her number and you were just going to let her.”

“Even if she was and even if she did, it doesn’t matter?” Derek tilts his head. “I have absolutely zero interest in Katie—”

“Karly—”

“— and I would have deleted it anyway, had she given it to me.” He pauses. “Which she did not. Because of the thing.” He waves a hand in Stiles’ direction, at his person, his foot.

Stiles stews for a minute. “So why didn’t you just tell her?”

Derek frowns. “Tell her what?”

Tell her what, indeed. Tell her he was taken? Dating? Fucking the goofy, uncouth, clumsy library assistant who gives excellent bathroom directions?

He shakes his head and leaps over the armrests at Derek, hands grabbing the sides of Derek’s face, sliding into his hair and clutching there, mouth on his mouth, holding him hard and frantic as the sun beats down and the cars drive by.

“Ow!” Derek says against Stiles’ mouth. Stiles stops kissing him, but doesn’t let go of his hair. “What the hell, Stiles.” Derek pulls back a bit, fingers touching his lower lip. Blood. Stiles bit him.

Stiles releases his grip and flops back in his seat, breathing hard.

“Oops,” he says. He can taste Derek’s lip blood in his mouth, on his tongue. He swallows. He’s shaking a bit.

“Oops?”

“Got carried away by your hotness.” Stiles clenches his hands on his thighs tight, tighter. “Sorry.”

Derek looks at him. His lip’s already healed. “It’s. It’s fine.” It doesn’t sound fine. Stiles knows it isn’t fine. He can feel his nails cutting into his palms. “Stiles.” Derek reaches over and puts his hand over Stiles’. He pulls at his wrist, lifts his hand and uncurls his fingers. “Jesus Stiles. What is going on with you today?” Deep crescents in the palms of both hands. He’s cut the skin in four or five places. Derek stares down in utter confusion.

“Sexual frustration, buddy. Good old sexual frust—”

Derek kisses his palms, one, then the other, lips wet, tongue darting out, gentle, soft. Stiles stares, mouth slack. Derek keeps doing it until the marks are the gone, the blood wiped clean, skin pink and tingling under Derek’s lips. Derek pulls back and surveys his work. He seems satisfied, but can’t help himself.

“Better?”

Stiles nods. He can’t speak.

Derek kisses each palm once more, places Stiles’ hands back in his lap.

“You just,” Stiles starts. He tries to calm the thready unsteady beat of his heart. “You make me so mad sometimes.”

Derek laughs. “Well yeah. I know _that_.”

Stiles smiles a little. “I make you mad, too.” Derek laughs again.

“Yeah. You sure do.”

“But not for the same reasons.”

Derek looks confused and opens his mouth like he’s going to ask, so Stiles clears his throat because that’s a path he doesn’t want to go down.

“You,” Stiles begins. He clears his throat again. He flexes his hands and looks down at the clear, soft skin of his palms. He waggles his hands in Derek’s direction. “You should really do something with this. This, um, particular skill set you have. You could. Uh. Yeah.”

Derek smiles, just a bit. “Yeah.” He clears his own throat and looks away. “Maybe I will.”

When Stiles walks back into the library, he’s not limping at all.

 

//

 

Whatever this thing is between them started the day of the anniversary.

Stiles awoke stupidly early, like he did every year on this date, and listened to his heart beating, beating because he was still here, he was still alive. Thump. Thump. Thump. He lay in the ridiculously early morning darkness and listened to his heart beating and thought about nothing in particular, really, except the long, interminable day ahead. He thought about getting up and getting dressed and eating breakfast with his dad and getting in his Jeep and driving to school and attending classes and seeing his friends and not-friends and smiling and pretending everything was ok and throwing the stupid lacrosse ball around for a few hours and meeting his dad at the cemetery with flowers and then coming home and eating dinner and getting back in bed and going to sleep.

He could do it, he decided. He could do all those things, one after another and make it to tomorrow. Feet on the floor. Stand up. Move.

 _Move_.

Be brave, his mom had said, the day she went into the hospital. Be brave, his dad had said, the day of the funeral. Be brave, Melissa had said, his first day back at school after days of hiding in his room. Stiles had never felt brave once in his entire life, but he could do this. He could do this.

So he did.

He ate and drove and studied and smiled and ran and threw and met his dad and cried a bit and hugged his dad and sent his dad back to work and he did it all and he did ok until he got home again, panic gripping at his lungs and sliding up his throat. He’d planned on taking a shower after practice but when he made it into the bathroom and closed the door and stood in front of the mirror he didn’t recognize the person reflected back at him. He closed his eyes and breathed and counted and opened his eyes again. Everything was wobbly and unfocused and his breath was coming in short quick pants. He leaned forward against the sink and dropped his head. He looked back up and tried to focus on his face but nothing was making sense. He ran shaky hands through his sweaty, dishevelled hair. Everything was too much and too big and everything was _wrong_. He stared at himself, at the arch of his brows and the scattering of moles, the colour of his eyes and the curve of his mouth, his cheeks his chin his neck. Those things were mostly the same and nothing he could change anyway. But his hair. It was long, his hair. Too long. The longest he could remember it being in years and years. He looked like a crazy person with his wild eyes and his long dishevelled hair. That’s what he needed to do, he decided suddenly. The hair. His hair was all wrong and today of all days it couldn’t be wrong. He opened the cupboard under the sink and dug through shampoo bottles and toilet paper and old razors and shaving cream and found what he was looking for, not used for several years now, but as familiar as the day he’d bought it.

The clippers were black and shiny with several different sized blades but the one he’d used to shave his hair back then was still attached. He plugged it in and hit the switch and went to work. It was soothing even as his hand shook and even as his heart thud thud thudded and sweat gathered along his increasingly visible hairline and dripped down his face, stinging his eyes, sliding around his nose, salt in his mouth.

He was trying to figure out a way to see the back of his head when the bathroom door swung open and Derek was standing there, framed in the doorway, dark and curious and concerned. Stiles was still panting and shaky, hair everywhere. It was a hair massacre. Derek just looked at him, frowning.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Stiles said but he was lying and Derek knew he was lying. “Everything. I don’t know.” He turned back to the mirror. “What are you even doing here?”

He was holding Stiles’ jacket. “Scott asked me to give you this. He was running late otherwise he would have brought it himself. Said you left it at practice and that you’d need it if it started raining and you were going to the cemetery.”

Their eyes met in the mirror. Stiles licked his hair-coated lips. “I already went. But thanks.”

“I knocked but.” He was still watching Stiles closely. “The door was unlocked. I was just going to leave it on a chair but.” He paused again. “You sounded. Your heart.” He didn’t finish.

“I could have been jerking off, dude,” Stiles said to his reflection. He tried to smile but it didn’t look right. Nothing looked right.

Derek shrugged. “No. I know what that sounds like. And smells like.”

“Look at you with the jokes.”

“I’m not joking. Unfortunately.”

That made Stiles smile genuinely, which made Derek smile genuinely which made the entire situation feel even stranger than it did before Derek admitted he knew what Stiles sounded like when he was masturbating.

“What does masturbation smell like?” Stiles said, trying to break the tension, break the weirdness of Derek standing in his hair-covered bathroom on the anniversary of his mom’s death.

Derek just rolled his eyes.

“No, I mean. You know. _Before_ the finale.”

“Not like this. Not like.” Derek tilted his head again. “Despair.”

Stiles closed his eyes and swayed a bit.

“What are you doing?” Derek asked, taking one step into the room. He could see what he was doing, but Stiles thought it was nice that he was, like, making conversation and all.

“It wasn’t right,” Stiles said. He couldn’t stop staring at himself and he saw Derek in the mirror, watching. He didn’t know how to explain it any more than that, but Derek just nodded, like he gets it. “My mom died today,” he said. “Well not today, obviously. But. And I just. Everything was _wrong_.”

“I know about anniversaries,” Derek said, and Stiles swallowed, hard. He nodded. “And I know about the bad days, too.”

Stiles met Derek’s gaze in the mirror. He thought about the past year, about how they didn’t hate each other so much anymore, if they ever did. He thought about pack meetings and school ending and things changing and friends and boyfriends and all sorts of things he hadn’t let himself think about for months and months.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” Stiles said. He ran a shaky hand over the top of his head. “How does it look?”

Derek tilted his head, appraising. His eyes were soft and wide and he smiled a little. “Not bad, considering. But, you missed a few spots.” He kept staring. Stiles’ cheeks felt hot. He scrubbed a hand over his head again and yeah, he could feel it was uneven. He used to do it in the backyard with Scott supervising. He didn’t know what he was thinking, if he was thinking anything at all. Derek took a step towards him. He held out a hand. “Can I?”

Stiles hesitated for only a second.

Derek worked slowly and methodically, his fingers brushing against Stiles’ neck and ears and back of his head, tongue tucked in the corner of his mouth, moving gently and carefully until Stiles’ eyes felt wet and the back of his nose stung. When Derek was done he stepped back and looked.

“Good,” he said at last. 

“Thank you,” Stiles said. He moved his hand over his head again and again and again, little pieces of his hair fluttering away with the movement. He could feel them on his face, his nose, in his eyes, on the back of his neck, itchy and prickly. He yanked his shirt off and used it to wipe down his neck and shoulders and face but he could still feel them everywhere.

“Turn around,” Derek said and Stiles did. Derek used his hands to try to dust off the hairs from the back of his neck, over his shoulder blades and down. Stiles held his breath and didn’t dare move. He didn’t want to break the spell, break whatever was happening between them. Derek stopped, but let his hands rest on Stiles’ back, warm hands on warm skin. “You’re going to need to shower or something,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. He was leaning back, just a bit, his weight resting against the palms of Derek’s hands. Neither one moved.

Be brave, Stiles thought. Be brave. He turned and took Derek’s hand in his, and held it tight. He brought it to his mouth and kissed it. He looked up at Derek and smiled.

“Yeah?” Derek said and Stiles nodded.

“Yeah,” and he pulled Derek down the hallway to his bedroom and his bed.

Derek followed.

 

//

 

It’s all so _easy_ , the two of them, falling into bed, falling into the comfortable daily routine of coffee and breakfast, and school and practice and homework and lacrosse and family dinners, when the Sheriff is home, and occasional sleepovers, when the Sheriff is not.

Falling falling falling. Falling shouldn’t be this easy, Stiles thinks. There should be some flailing because the ground is coming up faster than you think.

Stiles doesn’t discuss the details with John and John doesn’t question, but he watches, and he still wants Stiles to let him know if he’ll be late for curfew and the only comments he voices are curious more than accusatory.

“You seem happy,” he says one night after Derek has left and Stiles startles and nods because yes.

“Derek is more…settled, in his skin,” John says another time after dinner and baseball on TV and Stiles blinks and nods but he doesn’t know, not for sure.

What he does know about Derek’s skin is how it tastes just under the cut of his jaw and the backs of his knees and the pads of his fingers. He knows how his back arches when Stiles sucks him right down, the sounds he makes in the back of his throat just before he comes and how sometimes, once in a while, he half wolfs-out when he’s deep inside Stiles, rocking against him, slick and lost and wild, until Stiles strokes his shoulders, his neck, the bottom of his back until Derek shudders and shudders and comes and comes back to him, skin slippery with sweat, mouthing at Stiles’ neck, cock still twitching inside him.

He knows that Derek likes to be held and he likes his back rubbed — not tickled but not hard, either, somewhere in between — so Stiles uses his fingertips and Derek falls asleep this way sometimes. He knows Derek likes chicken and pasta and strawberry ice cream and he likes to fuck Stiles so hard the bed shakes but he also likes to move so slowly and sweetly and carefully that neither of them hardly dares makes a sound at all.

He knows all these things about Derek but still sometimes feels he knows nothing at all.

 

//

 

Neither of them tells the pack because what is there to tell? Everyone must know they’re fucking, Stiles thinks, with their werewolf senses and their inability to keep their noses out of anyone’s business, figuratively and literally, but no one says anything directly to Stiles about how he smells like Derek and sometimes wears Derek’s shirts and gets painfully hard when Derek looks at him from across the room, eyes dark and knowing.

“Has anyone asked you anything?” Stiles asks Derek one night when they’re sitting in Stiles’ Jeep licking ice creams cones. It’s hot and everything is melting and Stiles is mesmerized by Derek’s tongue.

“Anyone who?”

“Erica. Boyd. Isaac.” Stiles waves his hand in a circular motion. Anyone. Everyone. Derek shakes his head no. He doesn’t seem fazed by this, or curious, or upset. He doesn’t seem anything at all about what they are or what they’re doing.

“Are you going to make an announcement or anything?”

Derek sighs, licks up the entire side of his hand. The ice cream is frustrating him. “What kind of announcement, Stiles? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And he truly doesn’t seem to know, Stiles realizes, or care, and Stiles lets it drop even though he desperately wants to ask What are we doing? Where is this going?

What happens when we hit bottom?

 

//

 

The heat hooks in with a vengeance, claws and teeth in deep, and now that Stiles has shaved his hair once he refuses to give it up even though everyone hates it except Derek.

“You look like a child,” Erica says. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“You look like a dork,” says Isaac. “Like, more than usual.”

“You look like a _dick_ ,” says Boyd. “I mean…literally. Your head looks like a penis.”

“You look handsome,” Derek says, close to his ear, lips tickling the skin there. “Like always. Although I would like to fuck you one day with hair I can hold on to.”

Stiles covers his hard-on with a throw pillow and everyone pretends not to notice.

Derek shaves Stiles’ hair in the backyard this time, with Stiles stripped to the waist and in swim trunks, sun beating down, turning Stiles’ shoulders pink. He’ll have a burn and more freckles for Derek to lick. Derek is half-naked too, chest hair matting as he works methodically. When he’s done Stiles is covered in a fine layer of hair, tiny and prickly, his and Derek’s both, sticking to his arms and neck and chest, down his stomach. In the bright afternoon sunshine he can’t tell whose is whose.

“Ok, I’m done,” Derek says, swiping a bare arm over his face and surveying his handiwork. Stiles is still staring at Derek’s chest, thinking again about the smooth smooth skin underneath, how it would feel under his hands and his mouth and—

“Now me.”

Stiles looks up. “What?” Derek is staring at him, like he knows exactly what Stiles was just thinking and Stiles’ face goes red, redder.

Derek looks down at himself, runs a hand up and down with a thoughtful expression. “It’s hot,” he says by way of explanation.

Stiles is mesmerized. He nods. He may lick his lips. “Sure is.”

Derek sighs. “It’s hot _out_ , Stiles. It’s super fucking hot and I’d like this—” he gestures at himself, “—off my body.” He holds the clippers out. Stiles stares. Derek jiggles them.

“You hate shaving,” Stiles says stupidly. Why is he trying to talk Derek out of this?

Derek wiggles them again. “For scientific purposes, yeah?”

Then he _winks_.

So Stiles shaves him from the bottom of his neck, just above his collar bones, down down to his hips, and when Derek realizes he’s stopping, he slides his shorts and underwear off, kicks them aside so Stiles can finish the job.

And if Stiles licks him all over, across his ribs and chest and down to the crease of his thighs and sucks him off in a frenzy, and then fucks him into the mattress in the cloying heat of Derek’s bedroom, there’s no one to blame but Derek himself. Not that he’s complaining. It’s all very scientific with the angles and lines, the sounds the sighs, the new shape of Derek’s body that had been hidden under the hair and Stiles can’t keep his hands or his mouth off any of it.

“Harder,” Derek manages to gasp as Stiles’ hips stutter and his fingertips dig into Derek’s shoulders hard enough to leave temporary bruises. When Derek comes for a second time he moans, low and long and Stiles topples over the edge after him, falling falling falling, and flailing all the way down.

And it’s all Derek’s fault.

 

//

 

The hair’s grown back the next day. Derek’s, not Stiles’.

When Stiles awakes the bed is empty but the house smells like breakfast food and breakfast food is Stiles’ favourite kind of food. He finds Derek in the kitchen, blessedly alone, dressed in a worn pair of shorts and T-shirt, sipping his coffee and stirring eggs in a pan.

Stiles pushes up behind him, crowding Derek up against the kitchen counter, hands tight on Derek’s hips, thigh wedged between his legs and nose against his neck. Stiles licks up the side of Derek’s face, tongue scraping against the scruff, scratching at his tongue. He moves his hands to Derek’s head, fingers tangled in thick dark hair, tugging and tugging and Derek makes this sound that’s somewhere between surprised and encouraging and Stiles slides his hands up Derek’s chest under the shirt and—

“What the—”

Derek turns and actually looks embarrassed, cheeks gone pink and mouth pulled tight, wooden spoon clutched in one hand. Stiles keeps moving his hands up and down Derek’s chest, through the thick dark hair, passing over tight nipples and trembling stomach. Beneath that he can feel tiny hitches of breath, the tremor of a heart racing.

“What the actual fuck, dude?” Stiles is grinning now. Up and down up and down up up up down. Derek is just watching the slow movement of Stiles’ long fingers sliding and tangling in his chest hair, breaths still catching in his throat.

“Stiles—”

“How? Like.” Stiles sounds almost gleeful. He can’t help it. He keeps rubbing, fingers lingering longer on Derek’s nipples and down low, near the waistband of his shorts, dipping inside, crossing over his stomach, up the sides of his chest right up to the base of his neck where his beard starts.

“It happens,” Derek says at last. He sounds defensive. Tentative. Tentatively defensive. “It’s why I never bother shaving. Too much work when it just comes right back.”

Stiles looks up and meets his gaze, eyes wide and bright. “Oh. Hey. I’m not, like, complaining or anything. Trust me.” He moves closer, groin to groin.

“I just want to do some more experimenting. You know. For science.”

And then he winks.

 

//

 

It turns out the extra blades that came with the clippers serve useful and excellent purposes, and Stiles takes full advantage. They’re smaller than the full head clippers, better for more intricate designs, should one want to attempt such things.

One does.

It turns out there are a lot of designs Stiles wants to try out as Derek sprawls in a chair in the backyard, or stands on a towel in the bathroom, or lies on the bed on a sweat-stained sheet on laundry day. He’s particularly fond of smiley faces and frowny faces, depending on Derek’s mood. He’s carved letters, too, S of course, and D, sometimes both of them together, just to get a reaction out of Derek. He gets no reaction. He shaves everything off except for a long strip running right down the middle. Geometric shapes are popular too, squares and triangles, a circle that looks more like an egg, and an ambitious pentagon. One morning it’s a wolf that looks like a blob with a blob inside it. Derek endures it all. Sometimes he reads while Stiles works away, sometimes he dozes, and sometimes he lies there, eyes wide and bright, watching every single move Stiles makes until Stiles loses his nerve and his mind, throws the clippers aside and throws himself down on top of Derek’s body, chest half bare and prickly soft and kisses him all over until they’re both shaking.

 

//

 

They’re dozing off one night, Stiles with his hand idly tracing the shape of a lightning bolt across Derek’s chest when Derek suddenly sits up, stiff and alert, facing the darkened windows of his bedroom.

“Cora,” Derek breathes out, heart hammering in his chest under Stiles’ hand.

Stiles struggles to sit, confused and bleary-eyed. “Wha?”

Derek is up and pulling on pants and shoving his arms into shirt sleeves and racing down the stairs before Stiles can fully comprehend what’s happened. Did he say _Cora_?

He did.

She’s standing in the foyer, worn and exhausted, hair up in a messy bun, backpack at her feet. She smells sour but looks happy as Derek pulls her into a tight tight hug, swinging her around in a quick circle. She kisses him on the cheek once with a smack before he puts her down and stares at her in disbelief.

“Don’t get too excited, big brother,” she says. “I’m just here for a visit. Nothing permanent.”

“How—” he starts.

“Tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. Right now I need a shower and about 37 hours of sleep.”

Cora’s cool appraising gaze takes in Stiles then, still half-dressed and clearly half-asleep and she raises one eyebrow.

“What the hell are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

Cora’s back.

 

//

 

Just passing through is her favourite phrase, her mantra, and she repeats it endlessly over the next few days, because God forbid anyone thinks she’s actually staying _here_ , this world traveler, this smart, savvy woman who has seen the world, has seen _things_ so unbelievable no simpletons from Beacon Hills could possibly comprehend.

Derek doesn’t care. Derek can’t stop smiling.

There are pack dinners and pack barbecues and pack picnics and everyone — including Derek — is jovial and upbeat and there’s lots of laughing and joking and watching. Stiles does a lot of watching, but Cora does, too

She regales everyone with her travel stories, the places she’s seen, the people she’s met, the people she’s _slept_ with. So many of those she’s lost count, she says. So much to see and do out there in the big wide world, she says, watching Derek and then watching Stiles, who is also watching Derek. Derek is watching his feet, or the wall, but hangs on every word Cora says.

They’re in the backyard of the Hale house, early evening, much of the day’s cloying heat starting to taper off. Boyd built a bonfire for cooking but no one wants to go near it.

“I can’t wait to get back out there again,” Cora says, fairly vibrating with excitement. “I don’t know how you can all stand it here. Especially you, Derek,” she says, looking pointedly at her brother.

“Beacon Hills isn’t all bad,” is all he says, shrugging, smiling a bit, and when he looks up and meets Stiles’ gaze steadily and keeps smiling, it’s only an accident, it doesn’t mean anything is what Stiles tells himself. Derek has one foot out the door. Derek probably has had a suitcase and backpack ready to go for years, waiting for just the right time to hightail it out of here, leaving everything and everyone behind. Stiles blinks once twice and looks away without smiling in return.

“Remember all those vacations we used to take?” Cora says, looking at Derek, and her eyes are alight but wistful too and Derek smiles and nods.

“Yeah.” He sighs. “I remember.”

“You liked it more than anyone,” she says. “Mom always thought you’d take off first, backpack, passport, and gone.”

Derek smiles and shakes his head. “Yeah. I know. That was.”

“Before,” Cora says. She reaches over and touches Derek’s fingers. “You still can. You can do anything Derek.

Stiles watches this exchange closely, never taking his eyes off Derek’s face. He looks more relaxed than Stiles has ever seen him, except maybe after coming his brains out and the way the sun is hitting him right now — the golden hour — Derek actually looks lit up. And his head is tilted back and he’s smiling at something Cora has said — Jesus she never shuts up and people think Stiles talks a lot. Derek’s limbs are relaxed, shoulders loose, left leg crossed over the right, ankle balanced on knee. Stiles couldn’t look away if he tried. He knows that anyone looking at him right now could see it all out there on his face. He’s hiding nothing and he’s falling like a stone.

Don’t go, he thinks as Derek sips his drink and smiles fondly.

Don’t go, he thinks as Derek laughs with Cora and reminisces with Cora and makes plans with Cora that won’t include Stiles in any way.

Don’t go, he thinks. Don’t go.

 

//

 

The wrong Hale sibling finds him on a sweltering Wednesday morning as he sorts through the returns cart. Fiction. Non-fiction. DVDs. Fiction. Fiction. Non-fiction. She doesn’t approach him right away, instead watches from a safe distance, pretending to examine the latest issue of Vogue, flipping through the glossy pages but not reading a single word, watching as Stiles fills his cart for shelving. Stiles keeps his eye on her, too. From across the room he catches fleeting glimpses of Derek in her face, in the sweep of her dark hair, the flash of a green eye, the down-upturn of the mouth. It’s unnerving, is what it is. He wishes she would go away.

She corners him in the 700s, Arts and Recreation, long hair swinging over a shoulder, eyes bright and knowing.

“So,” she says, leaning on the wobbly, metal cart, eyes focused on Stiles. Stiles never stops moving, never lets her see his fingers waver.

“So,” he says.

“What’s with you and Derek then?”

Stiles is determined to not drop anything today.

“Nothing. Nothing is with me and Derek. Nothing. Same old same old. Why?”

“I’ve just never seen him this way before.”

“Yeah?” Stiles doesn’t look at her. “What way?”

“Settled.”

There’s that word again, the same one his dad used. Except when Cora says it, it sounds like a curse, like something has crawled into her mouth and died.

“I wouldn’t know about that.” She’s following him as he walks. He wonders what she’d do if he ducked into the bathroom. He honestly wouldn’t put it past her to follow him to the urinal.

“I think you know a lot more about him than anyone else here.” She pauses. “At least according to pack gossip.”

Stiles shoves his cart hard and the wobbly wheel twists on the carpet, and the whole thing topples over, books everywhere, none on his feet though. Small mercies. Cora covers her mouth with her hand, hiding a smile.

“I don’t know much about him at all, I don’t think.” Stiles stares at the mess. He doesn’t know where to start. “It appears you’ve been sadly misinformed.”

They’re interrupted by a harried mother with a squirming child who needs to know where the bathroom is right now and Stiles points politely and wonders why the hell know can figure this out on their own and Cora says,

“Ugh. I don’t know how you can stand it here. Truly.”

“If you hate it so damn much, why did you come back here?”

She tilts her head, just like her brother, and makes a face like he’s an idiot. “To rescue Derek. Of course.”

Cora looks right at him then, because she wants him to understand what she’s saying.

“There’s nothing for him here.” She speaks slowly and carefully, intent clear. “Even you must see that.”

And the worst part about it was that Stiles does see it. Oh, he does.

 

//

 

He goes home after work, his home, the one he shares with his father, the one he actually lives in. He goes home because he can’t bear to hear any more of Cora’s stories, can’t bear to watch Derek listen to any more of her stories. He eats dinner alone and watches inane television alone and answers the door when the knock comes late at night even though he doesn’t want to.

“Cora came to visit me today,” Stiles says as he yanks off his T-shirt and flings it across his room. His belt hits the floor with a tiny clang and when his feet get tangled in the legs of his jeans he sees red.

“Stiles,” Derek says, watching from where he’s sitting on Stiles’ bed. Stiles strips down to his boxers and stands in the middle of the room, hands clenched at his sides. He’s so mad and he has nowhere to put all the mad.

“She made me turn my cart over,” he says. “And then she _laughed_ about it.”

Derek sighs. “I don’t think that’s quite what happened.

“Oh, so she told you about it.” Stiles rounds on him, eyes blazing. “I really don’t appreciate you two talking about me.”

“She said she visited the library and you were there and you seemed not happy to see her—”

“I was working. I was in my place of employment.”

“I think she’s just trying to be friendly. I know she can be. Prickly.”

Stiles snorts. He sits next to Derek because he can’t resist anymore. He leans into his side. Derek rubs his back, up and down.

“She’s not going to be here long. She’s just—”

“Passing through. I know.”

It’s a losing battle and Stiles is exhausted. He turns out the light and they lie down together and this time Derek is holding Stiles, a warm heavy arm over his chest.

“I missed you today,” Derek says into the back of Stiles’ neck.

“You could have come to see me. You know where I work.”

Derek’s hand is soothing, and his breath on the back of Stiles’ neck is calming but Stiles’ mind is racing still. He shifts under Derek’s arm once, twice. He thinks about far-off lands and interesting people doing interesting things far away from here. He wonders how many people Cora has actually slept with and if she’s broken any hearts and if any of them considered her their boyfriend or girlfriend or—

“Stiles,” Derek says, in his almost-asleep voice. “Stop—”

Stiles sighs. He turns over with difficulty, bangs his knees against Derek’s, threads his fingers through Derek’s chest hair. “I know. Stop thinking.”

He stops. Mostly. He doesn’t sleep.

 

//

 

Stiles can hear the beat of the music before Scott even cuts the engine. 

“Why are we here again?” he asks.

“For fun. For a _fun time_ ,” Scott says, but he sounds as unsure as Stiles feels. “C’mon, Stiles. You know you want to. Everybody’s doing it.”

Stiles rolls his eyes but smiles.

“This wasn’t my idea,” Scott reminds him as they make their way into the club — Nebula, what a dumb name — all bright neon moons and stars and flashing comets.

“No, I know,” Stiles says. “It was Cora’s.” Cora is just full of good ideas these days. Anything to force her brother out of the house and to socialize with anyone who isn’t Stiles, it seems. The two of them disappear on little outings several times a week to restaurants and walks in the park and shopping and even a movie. Passing through is taking a lot longer than Stiles anticipated. He has scoured Derek’s bedroom for packed bags and plane tickets but so far has turned up nothing.

Falling falling falling.

Everybody’s doing it, Scott said, and he’s right. Everybody’s here, including Derek. When Stiles’ eyes adjust he sees him immediately. Derek is on the dance floor. Derek is having _fun_. He’s smiling. With teeth. He’s talking to people. Stiles catches him laughing, head thrown back, throat long and lean and bare. The top buttons of his shirt are undone and there’s the black chest hair. He’s so beautiful it hurts. He’s so beautiful it makes Stiles _angry_.

“Hanker sore.”

Stiles startles. Cora is standing beside him, looking where Stiles was looking.

“What?”

“Derek. He’s a hanker sore.” She smiles. “It’s what Geoffrey always called Igor when he was dancing in Ibiza. A hanker sore.”

“I never know what the hell you’re talking about,” Stiles says and this, for some reason, makes Cora laugh.

Stiles decides he needs alcohol immediately and heads to the bar to find some. Cora, of course follows.

“What are _you_ drinking?” Stiles asks because she’s not leaving and he realizes she’s tipsy. She holds up a bottle of something he doesn’t recognize.

“Special brew,” she says, winking like it’s a secret and dear god she looks so much like Derek that Stiles starts to hyperventilate. “Werewolf friendly.” Then she moves closer and slings an arm over his shoulders. “I like you Stiles.”

“Could have fooled me,” he says. They’re leaning against the bar, watching the dance floor, watching Scott with Allison and Erica with Boyd, and Derek with pretty much anyone within arms’ reach.

“It’s just my way,” she says, tightening her grip. “It’s not you I object to. You’re cute. And you’re smart and you’re funny, blah blah blah.” She takes a long swig of whatever she’s been sucking back all night and sighs. “It’s just this town. I gotta get out of this godforsaken town.” She tilts her head and looks at Stiles. “And I gotta get Derek out of here.”

Stiles knows this. He knew this the second he saw Cora. The only reason she’d ever come back here is to fetch Derek. To rescue him. To get him the fuck out of here.

“I’ll drink to that,” he says and he does. He drinks his beer, fast, too fast, then another and another. Derek is surrounded on the dance floor and Stiles keeps drinking.

Cora watches Derek and smiles and Stiles wants to ask her what she’s thinking, ask her when she’s leaving and where the two of them will go and if maybe he can convince her to make Derek send him a postcard once in a while.

“He seems. He seems good,” is what he says instead. He should stop drinking. He should have stopped drinking three drinks ago. He grabs another and downs it.

“Of course he’s good,” Cora says and she sounds suddenly bitter. “He has _you_.”

Stiles turns his head to look at her, but she’s already moving away.

“Go dance with him at least,” she says over her shoulder before the crowd swallows her. “That’s why you came, isn’t it?”

The last beer slides down fast and easy but sits like a rock in his stomach. He swallows hard and makes his way onto the floor, moving towards Derek because it _is_ why he came, even though he’d never admit it. He pushes through sweaty bodies that reek of weed and booze and perfume and he wonders how the wolves are handling this at all. Derek is dancing, kind of, surrounded by pack and strangers and he’s lost in the music and he’s never looked so fucking beautiful and that’s saying something. Hanker sore indeed.

When he’s close enough he slides a hand up Derek’s arm and Derek startles and smiles.

“Stiles,” he says. “I was wondering when you’d get out here.” His eyes are glassy and his smile is wide and open and radiant and Stiles realizes Cora isn’t the only one drinking a special brew tonight and it explains a lot about Derek’s sudden fancy moves. Derek is watching him, soft and dazed and happy and Stiles doesn’t haven’t a clue what he’s doing out here. He’s about to turn and leave when Derek grabs him and pulls him in tight, chest to chest and groin to groin and Stiles groans under the music, hands around Derek’s middle, clutching at the dampness of his shirt. They sway together, and Stiles closes his eyes.

“I don’t want you to go,” he says into Derek’s neck, low and muffled. Derek tries to pull back but Stiles has a tight grip on him. Very tight.

“What?”

“Don’t go,” Stiles says, lips moving against a tendon. He can taste the tang of salt. He licks. Derek shudders. “Please. Just.”

With effort, Derek manages to push Stiles off him enough that Stiles’ mouth is no longer attached to skin, but Stiles refuses to make eye contact, even when Derek awkwardly maneuvers his head and bends his neck to try to look right at Stiles.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did.” Derek’s hand is wrapped around the back of Stiles’ head, fingers in his sweaty hair. “It sounded like _don’t go_.”

Stiles huffs. “You said you didn’t hear me.”

“Is that what you said?”

“Maybe.”

“Is it?”

No reply.

“Stiles.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“ _Stiles_.” Derek puts a hand under Stiles’ chin, which, to Stiles’ horror, is starting to wobble. “And the answer is yes. Yes, Stiles. I would like to know.” He applies enough pressure to force Stiles’ head up up up and Stiles reluctantly makes eye contact. He knows he’s about to cry, he can feel the sharp stinging behind his eyes and in his nose and his stupid traitor chin is still trembling and Derek is just watching, quiet and still and confused. “Where is it you think I’m going to?”

Stiles swallows so hard his throat clicks. He shrugs, one-shouldered, and huffs out a breath. “How would I know? You don’t tell me anything.”

Derek stares and suddenly doesn’t look nearly as dazed as before. He takes Stiles by the wrist and pulls him through the dancers, out the front door, across the parking lot to Stiles’ Jeep. Stiles is starting to feel more than a little queasy but sucking in the cool night air is helping. He leans against the solid door of his Jeep and breathes and breathes.

“Tell you _what_?” Derek’s hand is tight around the back of Stiles’ skull. Stiles processes how big Derek’s hand is, fingers cupping around to the bare skin behind his left ear. Those hands have touched every part of his body now, he thinks. Then he thinks, how many other bodies will he touch when he leaves? How many other people’s skulls will he cradle and how many other tears will he scent and how many other dicks will he suck and how many—

“ _Stiles_.” Derek sounds angry now, or very close, voice low in his throat, chest still but heart heavy under Stiles’ hand.

Stiles works a hand under Derek’s shirt. They’re standing in the parking lot and the music is pounding and the lights are flashing Stiles is feeling his not-boyfriend up. He touches Derek’s chest hair with the tips of two fingers, running them along collarbones and down, then up, over pectorals and abs, letting the whole palm of his hand pet and pat and rub. Derek’s chest quivers beneath the flat of his hand. Stiles likes that.

“Jesus, Derek, it’s not a big deal.” Stiles tries to laugh but it comes out all wrong and he still feels like he’s about to start crying _fuck_. Derek probably can smell all the salt. Sad tears, he’s read, smell differently than pain tears, or freshly fucked tears, probably. Not that he’s sad or anything. He’s mad. And frustrated. Definitely not sad. Jesus. “I just like to be informed, you know. Keep abreast of the situation, haha.” He cups Derek’s nipple, rubs it lightly under his palm and Derek sucks in a wet breath. “Inquiring minds and all that. No big. If you’re leaving, have at it. Don’t forget to write. Letter writing is a lost art, did you know that? You could send me postcards from exotic locations and I’ll buy a fucking cord board and pin them up and imagine you lying on a beach with a mai tai. Ooh maybe you’ll be wearing tiny red Speedos. Do you have tiny red Speedos? If not, I think that would be my parting gift to you, size extra-small—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” And Stiles was wrong. Derek wasn’t mad before, he’s mad _now_. He’s super mad and his fingers are digging painfully into Stiles’ head and his heart is galloping along and his breath is hot on Stiles’ face.

“You’re leaving, dude! You’re packing up and hightailing it outta here with Cora. She told me herself. I mean, I can’t blame you, I guess. Why the hell would anyone stay here if they didn’t have to? I mean. I’m staying, because Dad and school and shit, but you? Why would you stay when you have money and means and a travel buddy and like.” Stiles takes a deep shuddering breath and fuck. Tears are flowing. “You have no reason to stay here anyway.”

“Who said that?”

“No one. It doesn’t matter. No one has to _say_ it. It’s just like, fact, dude. It’s common knowledge.”

“Not to me.” Derek sighs and fishes Stiles’ keys out of his pocket, unlocks the Jeep and hoists Stiles into the passenger seat. He walks around and slides in beside him and leans his head back.

“I have every reason to stay,” Derek says so quietly Stiles has to strain to hear him. “I mean, what do you think we’re doing here, you and me?”

Stiles laughs. “What do I think? I think you’re having a good time.”

“I am having a good time.” Derek looks at him. He looks puzzled. “But what else?”

Stiles shrugs elaborately. “Beats me, man. I’m just along for the ride. I mean, the sex is pretty amazing, and I enjoy our long, meaningful talks about the meaning of life and all, but at any minute I think you’re going to pack up and leave.”

“Stiles.” Derek shakes his head. “You’re going to school in the fall. Here. You’re going to school here.”

“Yep. That’s where I’m going. Good old Beacon Hills U.”

“Right,” Derek says slowly. “So why would I just up and leave, with Cora or anyone else?”

“Why would you stay?”

“Stiles.” Derek says his name like it’s a whole sentence or a paragraph or a novel that Stiles was supposed to have read but skimmed through five minutes before an exam. “I like you. A lot. More than a lot. I thought. I.” He sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “I talked to someone the other day. About some training. For me. About what you suggested. The healing thing. I’m actually looking into it. Because you’re going to be here for at least four years and I think this would be good for me to try. The studying thing. And. The you and me thing.” He stops. “I mean. If you want.”

Stiles looks at him.

Stiles has signed up for a variety of courses in the fall, all general and all different. He has no idea what he wants to do, what he wants to end up doing. He doesn’t know anything at the moment except that he wants Derek in his life. He knows how Derek looks at him and how he smells when he wakes up in the morning and how his hair parts bizarrely to the left. He knows how he likes his coffee and his steak and that peach-flavoured anything makes him sick. He knows the soft sounds he makes when Stiles kisses him and strokes him at the same time, his cock soft hard under his fingers. He knows he knows he knows.

“We’ll figure it out,” Derek says, watching his face as it goes through its complicated mental gymnastics. “There’s time.”

“There’s time,” Stiles says. “Because.”

“Because I’m not going anywhere.”

“Ok.”

Derek starts the Jeep and drives and Stiles stays quiet and doesn’t think about anything.

“We’re home,” Derek says. He takes Stiles hand and pulls him from the Jeep, leads him into the house and up the stairs and into the bed. Stiles follows.

 

//

 

It’s about a million degrees in the shade and Derek whips off his shirt.

“Dude,” Scott says, eyes glued to Derek’s chest. “What the hell.”

Erica leans up on her elbows and grins. “Well well well. Look at that.” Isaac and Boyd laugh and Allison smiles into her hand. But Cora tilts her head and narrows her eyes and stares.

“It’s lopsided,” she says.

“Is not,” Stiles says.

“It looks stupid,” Cora says and rolls her eyes but she’s smiling and it’s not a sarcastic smile or a mocking smile. “It’s a good thing it’ll be gone by tomorrow, at least.”

There’s a giant heart shaved into Derek’s chest hair, stretching from just below his collarbones to just above the waistband of his jeans. Derek looks down. He traces the outline of the heart with the tips of two fingers with a small smile on his lips.

“I dunno,” he says, more to himself than anyone within listening distance. Stiles, though. Stiles hears him just fine. “I just might keep it.” He looks up and smiles, bright and blinding. “I have an understanding with the artist.”

“Ugh.” Cora just huffs and lays back down, throwing an arm over her face. “It’s a good thing he loves you.”

She doesn’t specify who she’s talking about so Derek and Stiles just look at each other and nod.

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

“It is,” Derek says.

 

//

 

“So this thing. This thing, that we’re doing. Are we putting a name to it now? Hooking up is history, my friend. Fuck buddies begone. But dating? Are we dating?” Stiles has come up for air at last, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and is looking to Derek, who has his head thrown back, breath whistling harsh and fast through his throat. He hasn’t come down yet but Stiles needs to know. “Or we can call it something else, if you prefer. I’m easy. Ha. I mean, yeah, it can be like, Oh there’s that cute couple, or hey, did you hear about Stiles and Derek? Yeah. Stud Muffin is taken, sorry! He’s dating Hot Library Guy.”

“Stud Muffin?” Derek gasps. He’s struggling greatly to get himself under control. Stiles mentally high-fives himself. He has greatly perfected his blow job technique in the past few weeks.

“Hot Stuff. Sweet Cheeks. Hanker Sore.”

“…what?”

Stiles waves a dismissive hand. “Doesn’t matter. Just. Picture this: We’re walking down the street, hand in hand, or! You have your arm over my shoulders. Even better. And we’re walking and we meet someone we know, or one of the many unwashed who have attempted to obtain your attention and or your number, and they look at us and our hand placement and your obvious devotion to me, and they ask for your number, and you say…”

Stiles trails off, eyes uplifted expectantly. Derek swallows, takes one long cleansing breath and says,

“This is Stiles. My superhot baby daddy.”

Stiles ignores him. “I’m going to call you my boyfriend, if anyone asks. Just so you know. You can do it, too, if you want. I don’t know what you’re thinking but you like have my permission because it’s like, official now.”

Derek fidgets and doesn’t say anything. Stiles bites his lip.

“Oh,” Stiles says. “You don’t want—”

“I already thought we were,” Derek says in a rush.

“Were what?”

“Together,” Derek says. “I thought we were together all this time. I just. Thought.”

“You thought we were dating?”

“I thought all of it. Dating. Together. Boyfriends.”

“Based on what? The fantastic sex?”

Derek shrugs. Stiles wishes he could see his face, but he’s covering it with his arm.

“I’ve thought of you as my boyfriend for months now.”

“You never said anything.”

“Neither did you.”

“I thought it.”

“You think a lot of stuff. All the time. Especially when we’re supposed to be sleeping.”

Stiles grins and nods and pounces. He covers Derek’s face with wet kisses until Derek moves his arm and grimaces and laughs.

“The places we can go! Now that we’re. And you’re my boyfriend. We can go on road trips together. And ask for a single room…with a single bed! I mean a double or queen, but one bed! For both of us.”

Stiles hauls himself up and throws an arm over Derek, nuzzles into his side. He’s on a roll now. There’s not stopping him once he gets going.

“Arizona and Florida and Maine. I’ve always wanted to go to Maine. Europe! A walking tour of Ireland oh my god. And Canada. Canada’s beautiful. We could drive up the coast to British Columbia, and up to Whistler. See the mountains and the snow.”

He talks and talks and talks. He talks as Derek turns over and pulls Stiles’ arm across his chest. He talks into Derek’s shoulder and gestures with his fingers in the dark. He talks as Derek’s breaths slow and slow and even out, longer and slower still.

Falling is so easy, Stiles thinks, and doesn’t seem so scary any more.

He’s whispering now. The room is fully dark. Derek’s asleep. He must be. Stiles keeps talking about the places they’ll go and the things they’ll see together and then dwindles off. His head falls onto Derek’s pillows, fingers on his chest, in the hair there, the freshly clipped completely not-lopsided heart. He traces it with a finger. He runs out of words and just breathes.

“Stiles,” Derek says eyes still closed.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t stop.”

 

//


End file.
